I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement earlier today and follow up with the Minister responsible for climate change. I assume that would be the Minister of Environment.
According to a number of statements made by the Premier and the Finance Minister the last couple of days, we have a strong commitment in addressing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Using only a partial look at the Department of Transportation costs, they are obviously significant. Yet, commitments to reducing emissions are that we are going to allow a 66 percent increase. Greenhouse gas intensive development activities are beginning to climb once again. We know about the oil play in the Sahtu and so on, despite recent gains due to the recession.
In the face of this, I’d like to ask is the Minister prepared to set more ambitious targets for all of the NWT and GNWT, for that matter, and the means to actually lead the charge in reducing climate change now.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a complex issue, as the Members know. Late in the last government, we passed a revised and revamped Greenhouse Gas Strategy that set new targets. There’s built-in review periods built into that strategy that we will look at as we go forward. We also know, for example, that one of the planned projects has been deferred further, which is going to contribute to greenhouse gases, which is the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline. So while it’s still a critical project, it’s not imminent on the horizon.
At the same time as we talk about standards, we have to look at the tens of millions of dollars we’re investing at limiting our emissions. Things like the Biomass Strategy, the work we’ve done on solar, the expansion of hydro, the building standards, the Capital Asset Retrofit Program with the government, the rebate programs, the money we’ve invested to help people make their houses energy efficient and putting in more energy-efficient appliances.
So there are two things to do here. We can set standards and then we can actually get on the ground and do the right things, which is where the most immediate benefit is. We are already paying the highest prices for energy in the country.
When you look at companies like Diavik, they are investing about $33 million in wind energy that’s going to repay itself in five years. They deserve full commendation for that commitment. It’s those types of things that we are doing in addition for the setting of standards with the renewal of the Greenhouse Gas Strategy late in the 16th Assembly. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for those remarks. The Minister certainly is dead on there. We are doing lots of things. I think we are one of the most progressive jurisdictions.
Of course, we also have some of the greatest costs. I appreciate the Department of Transportation’s frankness in responding to some of my questions about what those costs are, recognizing that those are only partial costs if they are conservative, admittedly conservative costs, that they ignore the costs to the public and so on and that those costs are accelerating year to year.
I want to talk a little bit about the context. This was only one department, $6.5 million. Clearly, it’s worth comparing the net fiscal benefits of devolution, for example, estimated recently by the Premier to be $60 million. So I anticipate that with these sorts of information, we are going to erode all of those fiscal benefits through the impacts of climate change. That’s an important context to have.
The Minister of Environment brings climate change concerns to the table. Can he assure us that the obvious need for greenhouse gas reductions will be a key consideration in the environmental reviews that we have before us, for example, for the Inuvik-Tuk highway and so on? Mahsi.
It’s not a future tense, but that issue has been driving us, as the Member said. We are dealing with it; we are adapting to this on an ongoing basis. There are things happening that are the new reality. There is endangered species, there are the fire seasons that are increasing in addition to all the things that Transportation has talked about. That reality is there and we are making and are committed to managing our greenhouse gas emissions.
We have to keep in mind that we live in a cold climate. We are carbon-intensive users and we do have some of the highest prices for energy right now and we have to manage all that. I think we’re doing that and the demonstration of the practical application of our commitment, I think, is where the rubber hits the road, if I may use that term, in all the things I listed in my previous answer. Thank you.
Thanks for the remarks from the Minister, although I would say he’s clearly wrong. We are not managing emissions of anybody but ourselves, the GNWT, and yet we have the authority to do that. That’s exactly the point I am talking about.
The Minister did outline the many costs; for example, residents who experience the startling pace of land slides, erosion into streams affecting fish populations, contaminant loads, damages to homes, shorelines moving communities such as your own, Mr. Speaker, and so on. We need to know what we’re dealing with here to provide this context.
Will the Minister collect across-government data needed, and direct and indirect financial costs of climate change across our government operations, and to estimate the costs inflicted on our public and report his conclusions to the House? Mahsi.
I would suggest that the budget that we bring before the House and its component pieces with the various departments and the $1.5 billion we do have captures what money we have available to deal with the pressures. We have identified, for example, in terms of infrastructure, we have about a $3 billion infrastructure debt that we build up for various reasons. A lot of that is going to be to deal with some of the issues that are tied directly to climate change.
There’s a clear line relationship. We have $1.5 billion in the government to manage. We know that there are things that we could easily spend that money on and more, just on infrastructure, let alone all the program needs. I think that is the litmus test. That is where you capture the money.
We could say and we could build or pull together projections and say we need $10 billion if we wanted to put solar in every community and we want to expand all the hydro, we wanted to do all the other work that needs to be done in Inuvik with the gas, and Norman Wells with their situation. Is that attributable to climate change and is that a place where we want to spend all of our time and energy arguing over that, or do we want to actually stay focused on the ground in terms of limiting our emissions and the practical application of all the programs we’ve put in place over the last number of years? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn’t hear a response to my question for a commitment to estimate the costs to government and the public. I’d still like that commitment. We clearly need to recognize our situation.
I’d like to know, in recognizing that the federal government has abandoned Kyoto and so on, can the Minister tell us what efforts he is making in partnership with other provincial, territorial and Aboriginal governments to push forward combined subnational efforts and I’d also like that commitment. Mahsi.
Thank you. I recently returned from a meeting of the Environment Ministers and over supper we were talking about whatever success Canada has in terms of managing their emissions. My observation, which was agreed to by all the folks around the table, was that the federal government in fact has benefitted from the work of the subnational provinces, territories, states, and the Northwest Territories is a perfect example.
We’ve spent tens of millions of dollars; we’re doing ground-breaking work on things related to biomass, alternative fuels like biomass, its application across the land, the use of our own existing energy sources like hydro for things like electricity and for power and for heat, what we want to do with helping the private sector on wind. We are going to be taking care of our own business and that’s where it has to be done.
That was recognized in Copenhagen, as well, that the work that’s going to be done on climate change, greenhouse gas emission control, it’s going to be done at that level, because the national governments cannot get organized enough to in fact make the decisions necessary. So we are committed to that, and the Member has been in this Assembly long enough to see all the work that we’ve done and the fruits of those labours. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
